Ici, maintenant, je m'assieds finalement.
Et aussi bien sûr, je danse.
L'automne vient de nous tomber dessus, tout d'un coup. (Est-ce la tempête de la semaine dernière qui nous a laissés comme ça, sans chaleur?) La transition est un peu brutale. L'été fût si délectable. Si chaud, si court.
Mais qu'il est bon de pouvoir voir s'étioler les quatre saisons! (Le penchant de ce beau temps éternel dont jouit la Californie, et qui me plaisait tout autant.) Ces nuages qui s'amoncèlent, se chargent, et passent sur nos têtes... Ces pluies et ces après-midi de soleil ardent. Tant de vélos défilent dans les rues métropolitaines...
Des pommes et des hommes.
La semaine dernière, je me suis ''taper'' un roadtrip qui se mériterait certainement quelques lignes, peut-être à venir...)
De nouveau sur la route hier: quelle bénédiction. Cette fois-ci, non pas en direction de New York, mais plutôt vers St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, à 45 minutes de Montréal. Le temps était parfaitement capricieux; passant, dans l'espace de quelques minutes, d'un ensoleillement quasi absolu à l'ennuagement sournois. Puis, à nouveau le soleil. Bref, une merveilleuse journée d'automne... et en bonne compagnie par dessus le marché.
Détours, chantiers de constructions.. puis le décor devient bucolique à souhaits: voilà la rivière Richelieu, étincelante. Nous voici sur le chemin des Patriotes. L'architecture du village m'apparaît étrangement hétéroclite. J'aimerais bien connaître les différents styles d'habitations et leur histoire.
Comment dit-on ''patrimoine'' en anglais?
(Heritage)
Soon my friend and I are walking towards the orchard, bucket in hand... elated...
(Ouais, je switch en anglais tout bonnement comme ça. Pourquoi? Parce que j'en ai envie, et parce que j'imagine sue plusieurs lecteurs ne parlent pas français. ?)
We are elated by the smell of sunshine, by those infinite rows of grass. Rural, fresh(er) air.
We marvel: those trees are so crooked and so heavy! They are actually bent by the weight of their own fruits!
I get emotional, of course.
What can I say? To witness a phenomena like this fills me with such intense images and emotions..
And emotions naturally lead to thoughts...
There are somethings that make apples 'an Apple', yet each one is different. They grow according to the conditions they are given. Some have the top branches, others grow in the shade...
How are humans similar to apples?
As usual, I quickly find myself thinking in ''eco-psychological'' terms.
I strongly believe that everything we experience is at least partly projection - and a potential teaching. It applies to all our relationships, humans and non-human.
So then what can we learn from observing the feelings and the thoughts that come up?
In this case it is obviously projection, simply because this tree is not feeling what I am feeling - the lightness, the heart expanding, the teary eyes. It doesn't feel the burden. It isn't sad or weary. This tree doesn't ''know'' that its fruits are weighting it down. It cannot talk about the laws of gravity. It only is.
'' Isn't it amazing how apples return to the earth and help fertilize the very tree that produced them?'' muses my friend.
''Indeed.'' I hadn't thought of that.
And I wonder, just for fun: How can this be analogous to human experience?
What are our fruits? What are my fruits? Do we know when they mature and when they fall? Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don't.
We do experience phases in our lives: seeds we plant, fruits we taste, losses and cycles that never quite end... (The I is what remains as the thread.)
Oh! I can see how we might be like those apple trees... sociologically speaking. Easy! Hum. I like to imagine that here nature is showing us how to remain faithful to our ancestors, and how that principle can strengthen and sustain Life. And I don't mean only physically - taking care of the lands our grand-parents have toiled and lived on, or taking care of our elders. I also mean culturally.
For, while acknowledging (and accepting?) our fateful place as one in the bunch, we also each have a chance to bring a unique contribution - our fruit - to the Great Narrative.
By creating new stories, new narratives, we keep fertilizing the cultural soil of our ancestors.
Our parents have done they best, reaching for the light and in the process feeding us and filling us with their hopes and their stories. They raise us and when we are ripe enough, they let us fall off their branches. It is now our turn, little seeds, to strive and to thrive, to send down our roots and reach up, feeding from the ground beneath, so as to bring more generations of light-filled fruits.
Voilà. Désolée pour le switch vers l'anglais. Mes ancêtres parlaient tous français. Mon histoire aujourd'hui se raconte dans les deux langues. Et si je tends à choisir l'anglais, c'est parce que j'ai toute une planète avec laquelle interagir...
Néanmoins, le dilemme demeure. La saga continue...
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